In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. came here to help do some heavy lifting for civil rights activists who were being terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan.

He wasn’t greeted with open arms.

King and the non-violent protesters who had amassed and marched nightly down King Street were met with beatings, slurs and death threats.

Those who tried to integrate the beach on Anastasia Island were driven into the water by segregationists — and some nearly drowned.

The protesters who jumped into the pool at the Monson Motor Lodge faced being burned with muriatic acid that the motel’s owner claimed to have poured into the pool.

It also became the only Florida city where King was arrested.

But 50 years later, the city that tried to drive King out and violently repress the movement he led is now featuring an exhibit that celebrates him, African-American history and the ultimate victory that came from that movement — the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“Journey: 450 Years of the African-American Experience,” features photos of protesters carrying signs with statements such as “Don’t Buy in Segregated St. Johns County” and “Wear Old Clothes With Dignity.”

One backdrop in the exhibit shows old segregated restroom signs that read “White Women,” “Colored Men” and “Colored Entrance.”

The exhibit also features documents and interactive elements that pay homage to Fort Mose — the first freed black settlement in the United States — in St. Augustine.

And it also includes other aspects of African-American history and heritage.

HAVING AN IMPACT ON YOUNG, OLD

“I just wanted to make sure the story was told. “ said Hester Clark, one of the exhibit sponsors.

Yunus Asami, archivist for the Ritz Theater and LaVilla Museum, said he came to the exhibit to help his 7-year-old granddaughter, Trinity, add to her knowledge about King.

“It’s having a big impact on her.” Asami said of his granddaughter.

The exhibit was also having an impact on a member of an older generation — Carrie Johnson, who was born in 1935.

“I was working in Miami in the school system during [the St. Augustine demonstrations].” said Johnson, known as “Miss Carrie” around St. Augustine.

Johnson said she often tells friends she wished she could have been in St. Augstine during the demonstrations.

“But it’s a good thing that I wasn’t here because they would have killed me with my big mouth,” Johnson said with a laugh.

RECONCILIATION AND RECOGNITION

What happened to King and the protesters in St. Augustine wasn’t the city’s finest moment in history.

But the ugliness ultimately resulted in the beauty that comes with justice and reconciliation.

Justice like the kind that came with the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

And now, with the reconciliation that comes when the nation’s oldest city welcomes visitors with an exhibit celebrating a group it once despised – and that group’s place in the American saga.

For more information on the exhibit, call (904) 825-1000 or go to staugustine-450.com/journey/